I stood and wondered how I could set her freeSo I asked if she knew where they’d hidden the key.She wiped away tears and looked over at meWith pity that I assumed it would be so easy!

She said: “Buried inside pages of distant pastWith a heritage of lions, so rich and so vastYou’ll find the key with Sumayyah, when to faith she held fastAs they speared her chastity, and she breathed her last.

And it’s the finger of Bilal, the heroic black slave,The sign of Tawhid that in their faces he’d waveAs he lay tied down in a hot desert graveTheir harming of him made him all the more brave.

And it’s the pledge of ‘Ikrimah, enemy turned warriorWho changed his life to make the truth superior.Khalid himself could not hold him back from moreWhen his pledge at Yarmuk left the Romans so sore.

It is the back with shredded flesh and torn skinOf Ahmad bin Hambal, who refused to give in.He answered their whips with the truth and a grinTo protect our religion, he would not let them win.

And it is the bittersweet dust of the land of Hittin,That once engulfed the knights of Salah ad-DinFrom the filth of dishonor, he made that dust cleanAnd for the respect of the world did he set the scene.

It was the rope around the neck of the desert’s lion‘Umar Mukhatar, who would bow down to no Italian.Refusing to live in a state of humiliationHis chin high to the end, with no fear of the Creation.

The rope was passed on to Sayyid’s waiting headWith one last chance for him to be spared from this dread.And from the choicest fruits, they promised he would be fedBut his index finger led him to another door instead.

The same finger that pointed up as Malcolm X lay stillEnding a life of honor, that was one struggle uphill.He left a life of crime, transforming himself untilHe spoke bitter truth with eloquence and skill…”

She sat in the jail where we left her behindIndeed this key will be difficult to findBut it is you if you refuse to be blindAnd decide to free yourself from the colonized mind.

27th of Dhu al-Hijjah 1430 -14th of December 2009.

In the hours before Fajr; in the traces of the pale floodlights shining into my cell.